Altered Mirrors and Frames–Completed Flower Paintings on Mirrors

Here are the mirrors ready for painting, with the outlines of the designs drawn with pencil as a guide to where to apply the paint.

On this green one, you can just make out the daisies.

This is the Harvest one.

This is the Poppies one.

Before I started painting, I meant to apply some acrylic varnish or gel medium to seal the surface, but I forgot. When I splashed any water onto the frame, it did make the distress ink run, so I had to be very careful.

Here are the completed paintings.

At this point I decided to add the acrylic varnish. Silly me. It’s water based, isn’t it, and as soon as I ran the brush over the surface, the distress ink all ran! Panic panic!!! On the particular painting I was working on, I had to get a damp cloth and rub off all the distress ink and redo it! Time for Shoshi to put her thinking cap on. I haven’t got any spray acrylic varnish, so I sprayed on some inkjet fixative instead, and it worked a treat! I just sprayed on a thin layer (it smelt awful) and left it to dry, after which I could paint on the acrylic varnish with impunity. It might have been OK just to rely on the fixative, but I wanted to be sure.

The mirrors now have an almost matt finish which is quite pleasing.

I have got six more mirrors coming from Ebay, in addition to the three that I’ve painted with black gesso which I am going to do with a steampunk theme. I’ve also got six small wooden frames for my original ATC-sized flower paintings, and today I won a nesting set of twelve round Ikea gift boxes on Ebay – my hubby bought some of these once and I loved them and wished I’d bought some too, and they’ve subsequently discontinued them, which is a shame. (He hasn’t got many left, and when I asked him if he still wanted them, unfortunately he said he did!!) The person I got them from on Ebay has apparently had them, unused, for many years! I am delighted to be getting these, as they will be fun to alter too.

I am off to a craft show on Friday, and hopefully will come back with some papier mache boxes in different shapes to alter, and maybe some wall plaques. I am hoping that these items will sell at the upcoming church exhibition, as I think they would make nice Christmas presents.

Watch this space for progress on all these projects!